Proposed Roof Safety Standards Inadequate

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According to the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen, the reently proposed changes to vehicle roof-crush standards are a joke, with 70% of current vehicles already meeting them.

In their press release, Public Citizen notes:

Rollover crashes kill 10,000 people each year, accounting for one-third of all occupant deaths in vehicle crashes. Many deaths and injuries that stem from rollover crashes occur when the roofs of vehicles crush in, killing or paralyzing the occupants of the vehicles. In many cases when the roof crushes, the windows of the vehicle crush or blow out, seat belt and side air bag systems fail, and doors spring open, causing people to be ejected and killed.

I agree that increasing roof strength to withstand 1.64 times the vehicle's weight is not much of an improvement, seeing as how the current standards only require a roof to be able withstand a force of 1.5 times a vehicle's weight.